Teens gobbling mobile data at an increasing rate

If you think your teenager has been spending more and more time playing with that smartphone you gave her … you’re right.

A new survey by Nielsen shows that mobile data usage across all demographic groups has increased, but none as dramatically as teens between 13-17.

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of 65,000+ mobile subscribers who volunteered to participate in the research, Nielsen analyzed mobile usage trends among teens in the United States. In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group. Much of this activity is driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB.

Guys may be at the forefront of teen data usage, but texting remains the most frequent mobile activity of this age group, and here the girls rule, Nielsen says.

The number of messages exchanged monthly (SMS and MMS) hit 3,417 per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour. Teen females are holding the messaging front, sending and receiving 3,952 messages per month versus 2,815 from males.

Among other findings in the study:

The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since 2010

This quarter, 26.3 million mobile consumers viewed mobile video

The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days

Currently, 87 percent of app downloaders have used deal-of-the day websites, like Groupon or Living Social, and 54 percent of smartphone owners claim to use their mobile handsets frequently while shopping